


Bathroom

by Sneal



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Sports, Character's Name Spelled as Hanji, Developing Relationship, Eventual Romance, F/M, Female Hange Zoë, Friendship, Neighbors, Platonic Relationships, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-05 14:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15865062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sneal/pseuds/Sneal
Summary: Hanji is a student. Levi is a judoka. They're neighbours but they have nothing in common, except one blond friend. An unexpected event will allow them to know each other better.





	1. Pipe

“This sucks.”

That was the kind comment Levi said to the plumber.

“Yeah, that burst pipe is the cause of that huge mold stain.”

Levi enjoyed that apartment for two months. It was roomy and neat, the perfect place for him. Under his care, it became even prettier. He would have never left that place. Well, that was what he thought because some time later he started noticing some suspicious stains on the wall of his bathroom.

Maybe it was simply too dump, so he just needed to buy a dehumidifier and the problem would be solved. It was easy. But no, nothing is ever easy in Levi Ackerman’s life. The thing wasn’t doing its work properly, because the stains seemed to grow more and more. He even thought that he needed to buy another dehumidifier, and he did buy another. When he realised that it still wasn’t working he decided that maybe the problem wasn’t the dampness of his bathroom. And in fact that day the plumber found what the real problem was.

“How much time do you need to fix it?” he asked, looking down at the man still bended on the floor.

“Mr. Ackerman, I guess it will be a bit more complicated than that.”

Of course it was. Levi narrowed his eyes and sighed.

The plumber looked at him a bit worried, but he continued: “We need to change all the pipes in this wall, it will take a bit, a week maybe, but you can’t use the bathroom until we finish.”

Levi felt the beginning of a headache.

“What?”

The plumber got up. He was terribly tall, damn him.

“Well, we need to shut the water off, unless you prefer to flood the house while the pipes are being mended.”

If that was a joke, Levi didn’t find it funny at all.

“And how am I supposed...”, _to bathe_ he wanted to ask, but it sounded so stupid that he regretted even starting that question.

The plumber understood his question and grinned: “Ask a friend to use their bathroom.”

That was a serious problem. His only friend lived in the other part of the country. Erwin left to attend a master there. Well, that was a good reminder of his miserable situation and his miserable loneliness. He even left the old apartment they shared because it was so pitiful to get home after work and not find a blonde guy on the sofa. In the new place, he thought he found a new equilibrium in his life, but his most hated enemy, the fucking mold, was invading his new equilibrium and was pushing him back in his nostalgia of the good old days.

The damn plumber left, the next day he would come to start his job and Levi had to think about a way to solve this problem.

The only person he thought he could ask and that surely would happily accept to help him was that stupid neighbor.

Yes, his new place was perfect. _Almost_. Because beside his place there was another house, and he had nothing against the house, but he was particularly concerned by the owner of that house.

The most disastrous, messy, unclean, stupid person he ever met.

By the way, did she even have a damn bathroom? She was always dirty like shit, so he was unsure about that.

He hated it, but he had to get outside and knock at her door.

 

 ***

 

“Hello?” she said looking confused to see him coming to her house willingly.

She had, like usual, a messy ponytail, a large yellow shirt that almost blinded him and blue trousers with green frogs on it. This was enough to hit his sense of style and decency. He stared without shame and tried to express all his disdain.

They looked at each other for a bit. Hanji thought he seemed even angrier than usual, a brow on his face. He stood there, near her door, silent.

“So... you’re testing my abilities to read in your mind?”

Levi opened his mouth to speak but she stopped him: “Ah, I think you need my help but your stupid little pride is stopping you to ask to your annoying neighbor.”

“List-”

“But your annoying neighbor is here to help you, so you can just tell me.”

“Shitt-”

“Run out of something? Flour, sugar, salt?”

“Stop-”

“No, it must be something more than that, you would go to buy that stuff or drink bitter cofee instead!”

Levi put his hand on her mouth because the damn person wasn’t going to shut her fucking mouth.

“For God’s sake!” he said, “I don’t drink coffee, idiot”, he moved his hand away from her face.

Hanji started laughing: “You don’t drink coffee, that’s interesting. Well actually we are lucky, you’re grumpy enough without coffee imagine if you start drinking it.”

“My bathroom is broken”, he said finally, “I need someone to let me use their bathroom.”

“Oh, and you’re asking me that?”

“No, I just passed by to tell you that, but I’ll ask to that person”, he pointed at a random dude walking with his dog, “to let me use his bathroom.”

“Ah, that’s good, I think he will let you use that tree where his dog is peeing”, she moved to let him get inside, “Make yourself comfortable in my bathroom.”

“I don’t need it now; tomorrow they will start to work.”

“We haven’t known each other for too long, but I know one thing for sure: you’re a clean freak and you want to check on my bathroom’s cleanliness.”

“I’m not-”, he started, but decided to stop his usual reply to those who called him a clean freak, “I’m going to take my cleaning supplies, surely it is dirty as hell, I’ll come back soon.”

“Sure!”

Levi headed to his house, but turn to look back at her: “You can really read minds.”

She smiled.


	2. Keep an eye on him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Levi lives next to Hanji for a reason. And the reason is a blond, tall, gorgeous man. This is basically a flashback.

Erwin attended her university. He studied History while she studied Engineering. Nothing more different than that actually. Hanji still wondered how they became friends. The thing was that despite the fact that they looked like the moon and the sun, they were actually very similar.

Erwin was neat, handsome, popular and a good talker. The perfect man, basically. He was loved by the professors and the other students. He was a people person but in a more posh way. Well, at least that was the common opinion.

Hanji was messy, unpretty, far from the perfect woman. She was loved too, for different reasons though. She was not charming, but her bright personality and her exuberance gained her many friendships and her intelligence the respect of her professors and the other students.

 

They met by chance.

Hanji spent most of her days in the library where she would study for her exams or simply read a book that picked her attention.

The library was usually quite crowded, so when someone asked if he could sit she just nodded without raising her head from the book she was reading.

“Oh, here it is.”

She vaguely heard him speaking again, but she didn’t pay much attention.

“Excuse me?”

The guy talked again so at this point Hanji had to raise her head and focus on the person.

The first thing that crossed her mind was that his face was illegal because he could blind people with his beauty if you didn’t wear sunglasses and her eyesight was already shitty on its own.

The second thing was that he was terribly rude to stop her reading.

He leaned on the table, “I was looking for that book. I need that for an exam I’m preparing”, he whispered.

“Oh”, Hanji scratched her head, “Sorry, please you can take it. It’s not like I was studying it. I was simply reading it for no special purpose.”

She handed it to him and he thanked her.

The blond guy looked at her, “It is a pretty difficult book if you don’t have a good knowledge of political situation of the XV century.”

Hanji felt a bit offended by that comment, “I do have a good knowledge of that.”

“So you’re a fellow history student?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be interested in history.”

“Of course”, he smiled apologetically, “It is not that common to find people who are not history students interested in those kind of books.”

She shrugged, “I’m not a common person, I think.”

“Well, neither am I.”

He straightened on his chair and picked his bag. Hanji thought that the conversation had ended and that he would start studying. She was thinking of going to look for another book but the guy touched her arm to get her attention again.

“I guess I was rather rude”, he said, “Here”, he showed her a book with a red cover, “I really need the book you liked, but I guess that while I keep it you may read this. It focuses on the role of the royal family in the intrigues that brought to the war you were reading about.”

She took it and looked at its cover. The logo of her university was nowhere to be seen, “But this book is not of this library.”

“Yes, but please read it, you can give it back when you finish it.”

Hanji felt a smile rising on her face, “Really?”

 

It was the blossom of a friendship between two gifted minds.

Both Hanji and Erwin were interested in any kind of knowledge and they passionately talked about any kind of topic: science, history, literature, politics and so on.

Erwin was a kind person, but he could be as maniac as she could when it comes to learn stuff or, as he calls it, ‘to get to the truth’.

And he would made a perfect historian if he had the dream to find out the truth. He would go as far as it takes in order to destroy the lies and the ignorance of people. Hanji envied his determination, because he took that as a mission. If she had met him when she was still at school, she would have probably followed him and his enthusiasm for the subject he studied. Erwin was the kind of person you could follow to the gates of hell. This was a stupid thought, but Hanji in some way was sure about that.

She didn’t know much about his personal life though, he wasn’t the kind of person who would easily open up.

Anyway, by spending a lot of time together at university, she got to know that he had a roommate. Sometime he would say that he got late to the lessons because he was obsessed by cleanings and demanded that Erwin tidy his room before he left for university. Hanji thought that it would be a nightmare to live with such a person, but Erwin’s eyes would lighten up and he would say that he was not that bad.

 

“Sometimes I wonder about my sanity”, he said after he sipped the coffee he bought from the coffee machine.

“Do you?” Hanji started laughing while waiting for her chocolate to be ready, “If _you_ wonder that, I should get straight to therapy then.”

“Well, yes. I’m fond of weird people.”

“Aw”, Hanji felt flattered by the sudden demonstration of affection, “Are you talking about me?”

Erwin smiled, “Yes, and about some other dudes.”

The coffee machine made a beep and Hanji took her chocolate, “The clean freak?”

Erwin laughed in his weird way, “Yes, and another one I know since school. He rarely talks.”

“Just like me then”, she said, drinking her chocolate.

“Never met someone as quiet as you”, Erwin chuckled, “But there’s also another thing. He sniffs people.”

“What?”

“Literally.”

Hanji furrowed, “Like… dogs?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“That’s his way of knowing people. That is why I think there’s something wrong with me. I stick with a grumpy shorty, a tall dog and… a mad scientist?”

“Ha! That’s how you would describe me?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a compliment then.”

“I was sure you would say that.”

She sipped her chocolate, “I’m not sure the other two would say the same.”

“That’s why I never call them like that in their presence; the shorty would probably kill me.”

“Shorty?”

“Yes, he’s terribly short.”

“Everyone is terribly short when compared to you.”

“Uhm”, Erwin thought for some seconds about that, “Well that’s true… but this other friend of mine is taller than me.”

“Well, that would be terribly tall!”

“It is.”

 

The years passed and Erwin was near to get his degree. It was at the party he gave to celebrate his graduation that she finally met the two people with an abnormal height.  
Mike was really a quiet dude. When he saw her, he got nearer and started smelling her. It was rather weird, but also very funny. If that was his way to get to know people, well, that was ok. Dogs are considered cute, why can’t a huge man be considered cute if he behaved like a puppy?

  
His other friend, though, gave her some problems. She was expecting a person shorter than Erwin, that was true, but not that short. He was literally a midget, a tiny little boy that looked ridiculous beside Erwin or Mike. Well, he looked ridiculous even beside Hanji.

  
“That’s the person I talked you about from university”, Erwin said to the short man.

Levi stared at her, a deep frown, as if he was looking at a cockroach.

Hanji smiled, hoping he would soft his expression, but it became worse, if possible.

“I’m Hanji”, she said, stretching out a hand to him. He looked at it but didn’t move any muscle.

“Levi”, he grunted.

Hanji looked at Erwin for some help, but he just shrugged his shoulders. She gave up on their hand shake and withdrew her arm.

“I study engineering”, she said, still smiling, “What about you?”

“I don’t study.”

“He works in a gym”, Erwin said.

“Ah, that’s cool”, she said, “It may not seem like that, but I love working out. I don’t go to the gym because it costs a bit, but I love running in the morning. When I can. Back in school I was a quite good boxer.”

“A boxer?” Erwin asked surprised.

“Yep, it doesn’t look like that, right?”

Erwin smiled, “Not really.”

“I had an amazing punch back then.”

“I practiced judo, well I still practice it from time to time.”

“Awesome! I wish I could practice those kind of sports!”

“It is not just a sport; it is an art that requires mental abilities too.”

Hanji and Erwin hardly heard Levi’s voice. Hanji had nearly forgot that he was still there.

“Yes, it requires a lot of concentration and calm”, Erwin added, “We met at the gym… he is my sensei.”

Hanji looked down at Levi surprised, “Wow, you are his teacher?”

Levi nodded.

She didn’t meet him again, but she saw a couple of times Mike who, she found out later, was a tattoo artist. He worked in Trost, but he lived in a village nearby.

 

A genius like Erwin, graduated top of his university class, of course would have thousands of opportunities. He was proposed to attend a master degree in history in one of the most important university in Mitras. Something that no one could refuse, so he decided to leave and keep studying there.

He seemed sad, but the sparkle at the heart of his eyes kept shining, even brighter. That man was surely special.

They called or texted each other when they could, but one of his calls, two weeks after he left, was pretty weird.

“Do you know any apartment for rent?”

“Apartment?”

“Yeah, it is for Levi.”

Hange laid down on her sofa. Their calls usually lasted for long.

“Who?

“Levi, the short guy, my roommate.”

“Oh, yes! Why? Doesn’t he like your old flat anymore?”

“Well, something like that.”

“Uhm, well there are some apartments here, but I think they’re expensive.”

Hange heard the sound of a bag of chips being opened.

“That’s not a problem, he has a job, you know.”

“So why is he leaving? I assumed it was because he can’t keep paying the rent on his own.”

“Not really…”, Hange heard Erwin eating a chip, “Ah, I don’t know if I should tell you. He’ll seriously kill me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Erwin was chewing some chips, so it took him a while to speak.

“He misses me.”

“Oh, well that’s pretty… ehm… normal?”

“Yes, but he won’t admit that out loud. He just said that he wants to leave our flat.”

“Well, ok”, she fixed her glasses, “I think there are plenty of places he can go to…”

“I’d prefer if he could be near someone he knows.”

“You mean me?” she pointed at herself, even though Erwin couldn’t see her, “He doesn’t know me that much, though.”

“But _I_ know you.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if Levi went near someone _he_ knows?”

“That’s problem number two. He is a bit… shy?” Erwin ate another chip, “So he doesn’t have many friends. And I want it to be subtle, you see?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, he doesn’t like to show his weak side, so if I send him in a place he knows no one of his acquaintances live, he won’t suspect anything.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I’m worried about him. He’s alone all of a sudden, I don’t think he’s ok. I would feel better if you could keep an eye on him.”

A sudden realization hit Hange’s mind. She sat up and lowered her voice.

“Erwin… is he your boyfriend?”

There were some seconds of silence. Even the sound of his hand wandering in the chips bag stopped.

“What?”

Hange felt that maybe she was too direct and maybe rude, damn it, she thought that she had kicked the habit of invading people’s privacy.

“I’m ok with it, I was just asking because you’re being so dramatic about that-”

She heard a clear and distinctive laugh in the phone.

“No, I wouldn’t consider him my boyfriend. He’s… I don’t like putting label on people, he’s just very important to me and I want him to be ok. Just that. Will you help me?”

“Yes… well actually there is a house next door-”

“That would be perfect. Just give me the address.”

“Ehm, you sure about that?”

“Definitely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I really, really love Erwin/Levi/Hanji friendship, so I can't imagine them separeted. They share a deep bond and I wanted to show that bond in this fic too.  
> I'm also on tumblr https://sirannesneal.tumblr.com/  
> If you want to give me prompts or requests, feel free to send them on my tumblr :)  
> I hope you enjoyed it^^

**Author's Note:**

> This is so stupid, probably full of mistakes. I wrote for the sake of writing without checking it so sorry because this is far from perfect, but hey, I'm here to have fun :)  
> I hope you enjoy it!


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